formatting and installation advice for 10.3

[rlmut]

OK, I'm in process of installing 10.3 on a used 40GB hard drive in a 350Mhz Bondi Blue iMac. The problem I'm having is that the drive was from my PC and isn't recognizing it at all. I can put in a OS 9 disk and use the disk utilities to reformat it to Mac OS standard so Panther will recognize it. I don't want this to be a "half-ass" install that I have to redo later. So hear are my questions:

1. It seems that I remember reading that I can't have a primary partition larger than 2GB. I had OS X installed on this machine before but had to sacrifice the drive for another machine. I had that drive set with 2GB as the primary partition. Is this correct or can I go bigger?

2. It's formatted in NTFS. OS X installer comes up but it doesn't see the hda. Is there some way to make it show up?

3. If I decide to put both OS 9 and OS X on the computer, what would be the best method for doing this? I have used OS 9 much at all. Toying with the ideal of installing it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[HexMonkey]

In the OS X installer, open Disk Utility (in one of the menus I think), and see if the hard disk is there. If so, format it there. If it isn't, then the OS 9 disk utilities should be able to format as Mac OS Extended (which OS X uses), since that has been the preferred format since Mac OS 8.

3. If I decide to put both OS 9 and OS X on the computer, what would be the best method for doing this? I have used OS 9 much at all. Toying with the ideal of installing it.

You can either have them on the same partition or separate partitions. Mac OS 9 is all in a folder called 'System Folder', which is not part of Mac OS X, so you can install it with no conflicts. That System Folder can then by used for the Classic environment in Mac OS X.

 

[MisterMe]

OK, I'm in process of installing 10.3 on a used 40GB hard drive in a 350Mhz Bondi Blue iMac. The problem I'm having is that the drive was from my PC and isn't recognizing it at all. I can put in a OS 9 disk and use the disk utilities to reformat it to Mac OS standard so Panther will recognize it. I don't want this to be a "half-ass" install that I have to redo later. So hear are my questions:

1. It seems that I remember reading that I can't have a primary partition larger than 2GB. I had OS X installed on this machine before but had to sacrifice the drive for another machine. I had that drive set with 2GB as the primary partition. Is this correct or can I go bigger?

2. It's formatted in NTFS. OS X installer comes up but it doesn't see the hda. Is there some way to make it show up?

3. If I decide to put both OS 9 and OS X on the computer, what would be the best method for doing this? I have used OS 9 much at all. Toying with the ideal of installing it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

"... I can't have a primary partition larger than 2GB...." Where in God's name did you hear that one? The PowerMac 9500 that I bought in 1996 has 2 GB hard disk. Since then, they have gotten a lot larger than that. My G5's hard disk is 160 GB. I would recommend that you install your hard disk into the iMac. Then boot into your MacOS 9 distribution CD. Format your hard disk. That will also install the MacOS 9 drivers required to boot into MacOS 9 when you need to do so.

As for how best to install both MacOS 9 and MacOS X 10.x on your computer, you have three major options:

1. You may install MacOS X over your installation of MacOS 9. This is the default.
   
2. You may install the two OSes on separate partitions on the same hard disk.
   
3. You may install the two OSes on separate hard disks.

Whatever floats your boat. This stuff ain't that hard. Take the default and you'll be fine.

 

[HexMonkey]

"... I can't have a primary partition larger than 2GB...." Where in God's name did you hear that one? The PowerMac 9500 that I bought in 1996 has 2 GB hard disk. Since then, they have gotten a lot larger than that. My G5's hard disk is 160 GB.

I think rlmut was referring to the maximum size supported by the Mac OS Standard volume format. And yes, I believe there is a 2GB limit with this format. Mac OS Extended has a 1TB limit (so we may need a new format soon, as we are nearing this limit).

 

[Duff-Man]

1. It seems that I remember reading that I can't have a primary partition larger than 2GB.

Duff-man says.....I think you are thinking of DOS. Certain older Mac's like the beige G3 had a requirement that OS X be installed on the first partition and that partition had to be less than 8GB....oh yeah!

 

[MisterMe]

I think rlmut was referring to the maximum size supported by the Mac OS Standard volume format. And yes, I believe there is a 2GB limit with this format. Mac OS Extended has a 1TB limit (so we may need a new format soon, as we are nearing this limit).

The proper name for the format that you call "MacOS Standard" is Hierarchical File System or HFS. Apple introduced HFS+ or HFS Extended with MacOS 8.1. Third parties sold a lot of aftermarket HFS hard disks >2 GB. Our favorite fruit company shipped a lot of computers with hard disks >2 GB and MacOS 8.0 or older preinstalled. I bought three beige G3s with 6 GB and MacOS 8.0. I personally converted them from HFS to HFS+. I can assure you that HFS supports partitions larger than 2 GB.

 

[rlmut]

The proper name for the format that you call "MacOS Standard" is Hierarchical File System or HFS. Apple introduced HFS+ or HFS Extended with MacOS 8.1. Third parties sold a lot of aftermarket HFS hard disks >2 GB. Our favorite fruit company shipped a lot of computers with hard disks >2 GB and MacOS 8.0 or older preinstalled. I bought three beige G3s with 6 GB and MacOS 8.0. I personally converted them from HFS to HFS+. I can assure you that HFS supports partitions larger than 2 GB.

Was up to around 2a.m. installing both OS's. And yes the main partition was over 2GB. Went with 12GB on the main partition and 31GB on the second partition. Thanks for clarification on the 2GB limit. I knew I read something about it but couldn't quite remember what it was. For some reason I was thinking it was hardware/bios related when using OS X. OK, forgetting my momentary lack of common sense, I did have one more quick question. Is there a way to launch OS 9 without trying to run a classic app. in OS X? Something similar to dual booting on a windows machine. Thanks.

 

[MisterMe]

Was up to around 2a.m. installing both OS's. And yes the main partition was over 2GB. Went with 12GB on the main partition and 31GB on the second partition. Thanks for clarification on the 2GB limit. I knew I read something about it but couldn't quite remember what it was. For some reason I was thinking it was hardware/bios related when using OS X. OK, forgetting my momentary lack of common sense, I did have one more quick question. Is there a way to launch OS 9 without trying to run a classic app. in OS X? Something similar to dual booting on a windows machine. Thanks.

From the Classic pane in System Preferences, you may set Classic to launch on start-up. You can also start Classic from the Preference pane. In MacOS X 10.3, you may enable the Classic status icon in the menu bar. This will enable a menu which includes a selection to start Classic.